4 Ways to Utilize Twitter's New Profile To Build Your Brand

Twitter is changing its look, and your brand should be taking notice. Interestingly though, the look isn’t all that new. The new Twitter profile is a more visually-focused layout…one that looks a little like Facebook. Love the new changes or hate them, the new visually focused profiles are here to stay on social media.

So, as you can guess, Twitter’s profile overhaul means you need to understand how to best leverage your brand with the updated look. After all, you can’t follow the same plan you’ve been using with your old profile and expect the same results. It’s time to use the new tools at your disposal to create the best version of your profile possible.

From bigger profile images to pinning your best witticisms, here are four ways to adjust to the new profile view while you continue to build your brand:

Judging a Profile By Its Cover (Image)

Taking a page from Facebook, the cover images on Twitter have now become much, much larger. This works in alignment with an overall shift to a more visual-based storytelling being utilized by the microblogging service.

The small, right-aligned image is no more; now the cover photo spans the entire width of the profile. Cover images are now 1500 x 500 pixels, so there is more opportunity to tell your brand’s story through this image.

Of course, you need to ensure your image aligns with the new cover photo’s specific dimensions. A lack of image resolution when your profile makes the shift will reflect negatively on your brand. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and unfortunately, we all will judge a profile’s professionalism by its cover!

It’s also a good idea to come up with an image more specific than just the company logo. Your company logo may still be great for the profile pic, but the larger real estate should focus on your company brand at large.

Pin the Right Stuff

It’s the name of the game — 140-character message quickly disappears into the virtual void. No matter how perfectly-crafted the tweet or how important the information, tweets by nature have a limited shelf life. Well, not anymore.

The new Twitter profile allows you to pin your best or most important tweets to the top of your profile. Now, the contest you want to share with visitors, the important announcement you want everyone to see, or even just a great tweet can live longer on your new profile. The tweets still need to be shared strategically to appear in visitor’s streams, and your brand messaging must be strong enough to get visitors to come to your profile. But, once they arrive on your profile, you can make sure you are sending your visitors where you want them to go with the perfect pin.

Bring Your Visuals

Did you know 90 percent of the information transmitted to the brain is visual? In fact, human brains process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. So it should come as no surprise the new Twitter profile has jumped on the visual bandwagon, including multimedia as a much more important part of the Twitter experience. Thanks to the increased prominence of images, it’s time to start thinking about what people are seeing as well as reading.

Not only is your cover image bigger, but your profile image is larger as well at 400 x 400 pixels. And the image-heavy nature of new Twitter doesn’t stop there. The new profile also catalogues your shared images and multimedia, and links them in an easy-to-find position at the top of your profile.

Anything that has appeared on your feed will appear in this “Photos/Videos” section, so make sure all media you share aligns with your brand messaging. On the flip side, your YouTube channel and Pinterest board can teach you some lessons on what visuals to be including in your 140 characters these days. Through the visuals, you can further promote your brand’s culture, mission, and style.

Check Your Favorites

We’ve all done it — favorited a tweet with no clear understanding or plan of how this is the least bit strategic in our overall branding. Now though, your favorites are earning a more prominent position on the new Twitter profile. At the top of your profile, right underneath your cover photo, you’ll now be able to find a link to all your favorited tweets.

Of course, with the previous unclear strategy for favorites, some users used favorites as a bookmark, reminding them to go back to the tweet later for more information. Others used the favorite as more of a Facebook “like,” to show appreciation for a well-crafted tweet.

Whether you were using favorites as a “like” or as a to-read list, pay attention to the things you favorite now since they’ll have a more noticeable position on your profile. Make sure everything you favorite is on-brand and promotes your organization’s messaging.

At times, we all resist change. But with the new Twitter profile layout, this seems to be a change for the better if you use it to tell your story, promote your messaging, and build your brand identity.

What do you think of the new Twitter profile? How can you use it to promote your brand? Share in the comments!

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